A Can't-Win Market
AS STOCKS HAVE WOBBLED and sputtered this year, the optimists have heralded the imminent arrival of the great marginal buyer who would help an aging, narrowing bull market gain some altitude.
Retail investors haven't arrived in large numbers as scheduled, with stock mutual funds seeing modest inflows, and most new money headed to overseas funds.
Companies themselves have been buying back stock in large volumes, but mostly just to offset the upward creep of share issuance via employee stock options.
Foreign buyers attracted to U.S. assets thanks to a somewhat weaker dollar? Don't hold your breath.
Last week, though, in a whirl of headlines and hopes, stock buyers seemed to believe they'd discovered the source of renewed buying interest, in the form of an opportunistic billionaire and assorted other takeover artists.
Kirk Kerkorian's offer Wednesday to buy 28 million more shares of General Motors (ticker: GM) at what was then the premium price of $31 each helped offset the shock of the credit downgrades of GM and Ford Motor (F) to junk levels -- both for GM stock itself and apparently in the collective investor psyche.
In a week when the Federal Reserve raised interest rates again and suggested no letup in its tightening, and when the corporate-debt market was kneecapped by the auto downgrades, the stock indexes managed to finish to the good.
The Dow Jones industrials gained 152, or 1.5%, to reach 10,345, helped along by the 15% pop in GM. The Standard & Poor's 500 added 14, or 1.2%, to finish at 1171. The Nasdaq Composite climbed 45, or 2.3%, to hit 1967.
Coming two days after the $5.1 billion buyout of Neiman Marcus (NMGA) was unveiled, Kerkorian's bold and vexing offer (see "Kerkorian's Cudgel") may have suggested to a wishful Wall Street that every brand name has its price, spawning a fresh round of posturing by traders for the next deal.
In a typical pattern, several stocks got a pre-weekend lift on fevered but unsubstantiated takeover talk Friday. Honeywell (HON) shares jumped nearly 5% to 36.85 to close the week on enormous trading volume, as rumors placed the industrial conglomerate in the sights of another.
Recall that United Technologies (UTX) and General Electric (GE) waged a battle to buy Honeywell in 2001, before GE was prevented from finishing the deal by European regulators. The relevant companies wouldn't comment.
On a smaller scale, shares of online brokers Ameritrade (AMTD) and E*Trade (ET) gained 5% and 8%, respectively, as traders pieced together some stray tidbits ("E*Trade cancelled a European investor trip -- buy!") to conclude that the long-forecast consolidation of screen-based brokers was afoot. Again, the companies wouldn't address the rumors, though if nothing else the action showed the companies that the market would presumably welcome what remains a fairly logical merger of equals in a capacity-glutted industry.
The market, in general, seems to prefer focusing on company-specific catalysts rather than macro concerns. That could be because the broad economic picture is tough to read for the average stock watcher.
Fresh from weeks of concerns over an apparent slowdown late last quarter, the numbers started coming firmer last week, including soft but better-than-forecast chain-store sales and, of course, the heavier-than-expected addition of 274,000 jobs in April, announced Friday.
While allaying some of the worst fears of an economic downturn, the jobs data fanned smoldering inflation worries, which has been the can't-win pattern of the market lately -- soft numbers imperil already aggressive second-half corporate profit projections, while strong numbers raise bond yields and suggest the Fed will have to be that much meaner to fend off price increases.
When caught between those pincers, traders seem to be saying, why not just put a few chips on the next takeover stock? Of course, all the economic and corporate news flow could be set aside as noise in favor of the stock-index charts, which leads to the conclusion that the market has simply been enjoying a little bounce after having been stretched too far to the downside in last month's selloff.
The S&P is up 3% from the year's low, set April 20, and at the time technical analysts were calling for a tradable bounce of perhaps 5% before the markets hit tougher terrain and would require a fresh dose of great news to keep aloft.
That view hardly leaves much excitement to be had for buyers here. But such is the current market like a soccer game -- long stretches of tense stalemate interrupted only rarely by fleeting chances to score.
进退维谷的市场
在今年股市走势摇摆不定的背景下，乐观人士曾经预言，大的逢低买家即将介入，他们的到来将有助于眼下已衰微的所谓牛市恢复一点生机。
散户投资者还没有像人们预计的那样大量涌入，新流入股票类共同基金的资金量很温和，而且其中多数资金都涌向了海外基金。
上市公司自己也在大量回购股票，但大多数回购只是抵消了员工行使股票期权而流进市场的股票量。
外国买家被吸引来投资美国资产是因为美元汇率走软吗？别伤脑筋了。
上周，在一连串的消息和传言、预期的轮番轰炸下，股票买家似乎相信他们找到了激发新的买盘兴趣的源泉──从那些善于寻找机会的亿万富翁和其他各种各样的收购行家们那里。
柯克里安(Kirk Kerkorian)周三宣布再收购通用汽车(General Motors., GM)2,800万股股票，其每股31美元的出价以当时市场价格来看还有少量溢价，这一消息抵消了通用汽车和福特汽车(Ford Motor., F)债券评级降至垃圾级给市场带来的震撼──不论是对通用的股票本身，还是对市场的整体人气而言都是这样。
上周，在联邦储备委员会(Fed)再次加息并暗示紧缩政策不会松懈、企业债券市场因两家汽车业巨头评级下调而遭受沉重打击之际，股票市场最终以上扬告收，全周的涨幅还很可观。
道琼斯工业股票平均价格指数收盘涨152点至10,345点，涨幅1.5%，这其中，单只股票上涨15%的通用汽车功不可没。标准普尔500指数涨14点至1171点，涨幅1.2%。那斯达克综合指数上涨45点至1967点，涨幅2.3%。
在Neiman Marcus (NMGA)传出以51亿美元的价格被收购的消息两天后，柯克里安抛出的这宗大胆而令人困惑的计划或许向充满幻想的华尔街暗示，每一个品牌都自有其价格，这也让交易员们为下一笔收购做好新打算。
像市场经常出现的情况一样，上周五，有几只股票在有关收购的热烈但并不持久的传闻推动下在周末前夕受到提振。霍尼韦尔(Honeywell., HON)的股价上涨近5%达到36.85美元，成交量巨大，因为有传言称，这家工业巨头将成为又一宗并购故事的主角。
这让人回想起联合技术公司(United Technologies Corp., UTX)和通用电气(General Electric., GE)早在2001年曾发起过一轮收购霍尼韦尔的攻势，不过后来通用电气的计划被欧盟监管机构否决。这几家公司都不愿就收购传闻发表评论。
卷入收购传闻的还有经纪公司Ameritrade (AMTD)和E*Trade (ET)。这两只股票分别上涨了5%和8%。
市场总体来看似乎更喜欢关注个别公司的具体事件而不是宏观问题。这或许是因为对一般的股市观察家而言，宏观经济情况是很难准确解读的。
在几周以来市场围绕上个季度末明显放缓的数据深感担忧之后，上周发布的数据终于开始显示出新气象，其中包括虽然疲软但仍好于预期的同店销售数据，当然还有周五公布的大大高于预期的4月份新增就业274,000人的数据。
就业数据虽然缓解了人们对经济下滑的最大担心，但它也加剧了人们对通货膨胀的不安，而这种不安造成了市场进退维谷的局面：数据疲软会损害对下半年企业盈利的预期，而数据走强又会推高债券收益率并意味著Fed将加大力度防止价格上涨。
在这些左右为难的形势下，交易员们似乎会认为，为什么不在下一个可能的收购对象身上下点赌注呢？当然，所有的经济新闻和公司消息都有可能根据股市走势图表而被视为不关大局的噪音，这样就会得出结论认为，现在市场只不过是在上个月的大幅下跌之后享受片刻的反弹的欢愉。
标普指数目前较4月20日创下的年内低点上涨3%，技术分析师认为，市场在触及更高的阻力位之前或许能有5%的反弹，并且需要有大量新消息来支持这种走势。
这种观点基本没给买家带来什么兴奋情绪，但眼下的市场就像正在进行足球比赛，长时间的紧张相持的僵局只是被偶尔的进球机会打断了一下。
